Poetic Obituaries: The family said it all. [Courtney] Brooks'

sister, Kelly Tucker, could barely get out a handful of words--"It's been hard," she sobbed--forcing Shaffer, the prosecutor, to take over and read her lengthy statement.

In it, Tucker had written about the man she knew as "Spankey," about how he helped her with his children, was always there for late night phone calls: "He was the person I called when I need to laugh," she said. Brooks wrote private poems for his family and took the family photographs.

from The Baltmore Sun: Death of Courtney Brooks

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